OCTOBER 19, 1998

Jordan looking for a partner

EDDIE JORDAN says he is looking for a partner in his Formula 1 team because he feels that the operation needs more backing to be able to lift itself to the next level in Grand Prix racing. The Irishman hopes to find someone like McLaren's Mansour Ojjeh to buy a substantial shareholding in the team. This will enable Eddie to liquidate some of his assets and, at the same time, invest in building up Jordan Grand Prix without losing control of the company.

There have been rumors for some months that Jordan might be willing to sell his team but we hear that he turned down an offer of $60m from Honda earlier this year.

There is no shortage of extraordinarily wealthy people who might be interested in investing in a Grand Prix team at the moment but as few team owners are offering shareholdings there has been little sign of such people to date. With the new Concorde Agreement guaranteeing large sums of money from TV income in the course of the next 10 years it is a good moment for investors to take the plunge as the racing teams are becoming increasingly self-funding and the value of a team is likely to increase dramatically in the next few years.

Jordan is hoping to be able to conclude a new deal with Mugen for V10 engines in the year 2000 and 2001. His current deal runs out at the end of 1999 but Mugen is keen to continue even if sister company Honda is planning its own V10 engine.

Mugen boss Hirotoshi Honda has always insisted that Mugen is independent of Honda itself despite having a close working relationship and there is no doubt that Honda - the son of Honda Motor's founder Soichiro Honda - harbours the ambition of one day building his own road cars.